


Dazzling Array

by Go0se



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Backstory, F/M, Friendship, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Nott The Brave's A+ Self-Esteem, Past Relationship(s), Past Violence, Positive discussion of abortion, Purple prose? No. Rainbow prose. Prose with colours only mantis shrimps see, Species Swap, The Author Regrets Nothing, This is now the second time I've written this fic, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:29:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29953437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Go0se/pseuds/Go0se
Summary: Nott The Brave is a goblin. She's always been a goblin, and she's always hated it.After traveling with the Mighty Nein for a while, she asks them to bring her back to the first place she'd hated being herself a little bit less. There's someone she needs to see.Two people, really.
Relationships: Nott The Brave/Caleb Widogast, Nott | Veth Brenatto/Caleb Widogast, The Mighty Nein & Nott, Yeza Brenatto/Nott the Brave
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15





	Dazzling Array

**Author's Note:**

> This is essentially a remix of my first ever Critical Role fic, from way back before we knew Veth was even Veth! Ahhh, memories.  
> The title is from the description of 'Color Spray' in 5e.  
> At time of posting, episode 129 looms! May the dice gods look upon us kindly!  
>  ~~If there are any problems I will fix them LATER~~
> 
> Additional warnings: This is in Nott's perspective and she has very skewed perceptions of herself at this moment in time, so significant warning for _self-hatred, and self-blaming in abusive situations._ Also, canon-typical speciesism / fantasy racism; descriptions of drowning; mentions/ descriptions of body dysmorphia; and children in peril.  
> Please mind your step.
> 
> -

The prairie around Felderwin runs riot in spring, and the Mighty Nein are nearly as colourful. Silhouetted on the wheat and wildflowers: Caleb’s clay-red skin and burnt sienna hair, curling charcoal at the ends whenever his temper rose; Fjord, handsome face green as envy and horns that were smaller than they should be, edges pressing through his hair like sea-glass. Pretty Jester, short bob blue as a wine-dark ocean and the constant slight sweatiness (“ _glow_ ”, as she’d always insist) on her teal skin. Beau with her brown undercut and strong halfling fists, her skin's deep brown making her Cobalt Soul vestment shine brighter by contrast. Caduceus with his pale blue fur and moss-pink hair. And lastly, sweet looming Yasha, her crimson eyes and white horns curling through black hair, and her pale violet muscles showing off through the sleeveless tunic shirt.

The whole group looks like proper adventurers-- which is to say, tired and road-swept with ocean salt still crusted to their coat hems.  
Their cart and remaining horses (brave animals that they were) rested behind the group. From the cart's pit-scarred, charred wheels and sides elaborately carved with Caduceus' calming trance designs and Jester's sketches of various genitals, it has had also come a long way.

Nott The Brave looks at them all with her heart in her mouth. A quip Mollymauk said once struck her all of a sudden: _humans tend to blend into a crowd, but_ _ **we**_ , and he'd gestured to most of the Nein, _do not_. At the time she'd scowled at him with her teeth, annoyed when he only winked back cheerfully. She isn't sorry for that, exactly; it _was_ pompous of him to say. But she feels the sting of its truth now.

Poor Molly. His grave is half a country behind them. He had looked just shy of human: tall and wiry, skin pale beyond human tones right into uncanny, but he said he liked it because it made his tattoos pop like snapdragon fireworks. His black hair dyed all different colours, one eye bright gold and one cool blue. Pompous and an ass, but a cheerfully vibrant one who'd constantly been walking up to people and 'making friends'. Maye he could've been helpful here, as a counter-distraction.

Still, there's a difference in how people stare at a genasi or a half-orc or whatever Molly had been, and how they run from a _goblin._

There's no way the Nein could all go into the village like this.

Caleb speaks up, looking around with a small frown. His Zemnian accent is soft, and so is his genasi one, only a faint crackle around the sharp 'c's. "There's no way we can all go into this like this. We'll attract too much attention."

"Right," Nott agrees quickly, relieved that she didn't have to say it. "You're always so smart, Caleb."

"But then which of us will go in?" Jester frets, wringing her hands as her big eyes flicker between Nott and Caleb. "After everything you said, Nott, I-- I _really_ don't think you should be alone for this."

Guilt makes Nott's eyes hurt with tears for a moment, which in turn flares the itch for a drink in her fingers. She swallows to clear her parched throat instead. "If, um. If it's alright with everyone, I'd like it better if it was just me and Caleb."

"Man, really?" Beau crosses her arms in disappointment. In Halfling she adds, "I thought this was a _group_ mission."

Nott responds in kind. "I thought so too, alright? I guess I just didn't think very hard." Last minute panic didn't count as thinking, she reasons.

Caduceus shoots her a knowing look as she trips over the words, his expression softening into understanding. He leans on his staff and looks out over the group. Everyone's attention turns to him. (The firbolg man was so tall and skinny, and with his long flowing sleeves shimmering in the light, it was like a willow tree leaning over.) "I think Ms. Nott and Mr. Caleb are right," he says calmly. "We're doing our best not to attract attention, and based on that--" He gestures up to the thin line of guards patrolling the road into town, just visible around the edge of the Nein's cart. "-- the fewer of us go in there, the better."

The others look among each other for a second. Beau frowns and turns away to kick at the dust around the wheels.

Thankfully in the end everyone agrees, even their recalcitrant monk.

"We'll wait for y'all out in the forest," Fjord tells them, his rounded syllables gentler than usual. Even his tail was calm, curling loosely at his ankles where usually, in a tense situation, it would be lashing with quick _fwips_ back and forth at the air.

Nott isn't sure if she's offended that he's not worried about her, or thankful that he isn't going to push. (She's had enough pushy sailors for a lifetime, no matter how handsome or pretty they were.) Her heart's tattooing the inside of her ribs too much to think on it long, though. She smiles carefully, without showing her teeth, and nods to him. "Thank you Fjord," she says, "And Jessie, don't worry, we'll be back soon. And I can send a message back to you if there's an emergency."

"Oh... alright." Jester's eyes are still big, and the sharp ends of her tusks show over her large lower lip as she pouts. (To unhelpfully great effect, Nott has to say.) "You just have to _promise_ that you will as soon as something starts to go wrong, and we'll come in and chop everyone bothering you into very tiny pieces okay?"

Fjord looks a little more green at the suggestion. "Not that we think anything _will,"_ he adds quickly.

Nott's smile warms a little more. Jester promising horrible violence on her behalf was always so sweet of her. "Alright."

While she and Caleb cast their disguises, the others set about re-packing things for their trek into the trees.

Nott swallows the prickle of pain that surface when their friends turn away from then. _It's only for an hour_ , she reminds herself. She isn't trying to keep the Nein out of the loop or anything. It only... This was _private._ Her pre-adventuring life isn't fit for sharing with other people.  
Behind her, Caleb cleared his throat, startling her out of her reverie. He held his hands up in the universal 'don't worry' sign at her yelp as she spun around, then stepped back to show off his costume. He's chosen the illusion of an inoffensive human man today. Peaky white skin, scrubby beard, blue eyes, and a face almost as handsome as his own.

(Caleb doesn't count as 'other people'.)

A blush flickers across Nott's face. Thankfully already hidden under her own disguise of a young gnome woman. "It's very good," she tells him sincerely. "You look handsome."  
Jessie's suggestive " _Oooh"_ peals out from the woods.

The cheerful mood doesn't last long. When they get into town, it's to see gardens upon gardens earnest with flowers. Cut flowers too, stacked in carts for selling or strung from awnings like festival bunting or little droplets of rain. Their perfume brightens the air in the streets; it must float all the way up to the tillages and down to the banks of the river. They smell divine, and look so pretty that Nott's eyes hurt.

She has to stop only a short way from the gates of town, slipping into an alley by an inn that she doesn't remember being there when-- well. She huddles close to the wall and presses her face into her palm. A mixture of sorrow and regret rise in her gullet like nausea, gumming up her throat. Again, she wishes desperately for a drink.

Caleb squeezes her other hand in wordless support. Their fingers are only loosely twined together, but he followed her into the alley without question. Now he leans against the wall between her and the street to block her from sight from any casual onlooker. A tried and true strategy back in their petty thievery days.

Though, no one in Felderwin has looked at them twice so far. They could be any normal pair of friends walking through town, maybe here for the spring festival. Some people might assume they were a couple, even. (The thought made Nott's heart skip a little, even with the circumstances.)

"You know-- if this makes you too uncomfortable, we can go,” he says in an undertone, voice soft and plaintive.

Nott can feel his bitten-quick nails around her palm, and the heat radiating off him even through his coat. If she concentrates, the scent of smoke he always carries with him is there, too, comforting in its faint acridness.

Likewise, she knows he can feel how hard she's clinging back. And her hand's faint trembling. That's most likely why he's offering to leave, even when she's wasted so much time dragging all of them there. Nott thinks it's sweet. A kindness.

She hadn't known much kindness at all until she'd met Yeza. The thought makes her heart squeeze painfully, like someone stuck their claws through her chest and dug in. “I know-- I know. Thank you, Caleb.” She sighs, then pushes herself off the wall with her heel and onto her own two feet. Though, unconsciously, her hold on her wizard tightens. “I'm, uh, I'll be alright. Let’s just go quickly.”

  
*

  
Nott The Brave's earliest memories were smears of mud, blood, and cruel greens.

Life in her clan was not a gentle thing. Everyone squabbled, scratched, and screamed. From the time she could walk on her own to the moment she ran away from them all, most of the people she knew either bullied her or ignored her outright. She was too soft for them, too much of a pushover, too often caught staring at the village across the river with wide eyes like she was _thinking_ about them, not just what she could get from them.

And what was worse, the clan was right. She liked the little settlement; all the noise and bustle with hardly any fights, how cheerful everyone seemed in the summer, the different shops and things lining the road. The big gatherings they had sometimes were beautiful to see; weddings and festivals with baubles and decorations hung everywhere. She especially liked the ones done by the halflings, because there were so many at once. And no one seemed to hit each other if they got too near the important people.

It was just as well that she'd never had any fairy tales growing up or she might have had more expectations to be dissolved. But she still dreamed of having a wedding, embarrassingly. A romantic gesture of devotion, with family all together, flowers and fine clothes, singing and significant kisses.

Meeting her first love didn't turn out to be a romantic story.

Nott was working late into the night, sharpening hateful instruments in the hopes that Gott would box her ears less the next day. It might have been smarter to sabotage them on purpose. She'd only been the torturer's assistant for a week, and was sure that Gott would get tired of her eventually. She'd be shuffled off to someone else who'd try teaching her how to be useful, just like every other time. The thought made her glad. All areas of the camp had their specific cruelties, but the squalid torturer's shack was the worst. The one mercy afforded to her when she was working there was solitude.

That was why she was working at night. It was slightly less pathetic than curling up on her own empty patch of scrabby, cold grass and shivering under the scrap of blanket she'd found that night; and if there was a chance of less pain the next morning, she'd strive for it too.

The worst thing about her job, easily, was the people. Most of the prisoners never spoke, just cried and pleaded. Even before she'd been forced to apprentice in the awful place, whenever she'd heard them she had wished so badly that they'd _stop;_ or at least be allowed to die quickly. The sympathy was paralyizing, because churning underneath was sheer anguished helplessness. She couldn't do anything for the prisoners. Nott had known that for a long time.  
When she was young she'd hoped that she’d grow out of the weakness. At seven years old, though, a grown woman, Nott knew better. Her defects would never fade. The terror had sunk into her bones like weariness and it would stay there. Terror both for the prisoners, and for her own skin. If her clan found out she was sympathizing with the prisoners... she'd be _lucky_ if they just cut her throat. More likely she'd be used as a test subject for Gott's next apprentice.

All of which was to say, she'd gotten used to tuning out the prison's noises as much as she could. Life after being captured was exhausting. That meant it was usually safe to walk by the cells at night. Usually. That evening, however, when she'd been focusing on not dropping the sharp and twisted things she was juggling in her arms, she had heard someone singing. Instinctively, Nott had looked up.

A young man with cracked glasses was sitting cloe to his barred window, singing under his breath in Halfling. His voice was nasally and cracked, but sounded nice to her in the dark. Moonlight shone off his glasses-- why the clan had let him keep them, Nott didn't know. He was striking to see, even so.

Her clan didn’t sing. She paused outside and listened quietly, despite herself.

Not quietly enough. Rocks crunched beneath her feet and the song stopped all at once.  
In the silence, Nott's heart twisted up and sunk down into her stomach, pulling her eats down with it. She inhaled and tried her best approximation of a Felderwin accent, the remembered words coming out a stilted and weird from behind her teeth. “I’m sorry,” she whispered in Halfling.  
Nott could see him shift inside the room; he put his hands up to his glasses and pushed them farther up his nose, hunching forwards as he peered towards the window. "H... hello?"

Of course, she realized sharply, he wouldn’t be able to see her at all. _Shit._ Useless. Her ears folding sharply to her head in embarrassment, Nott stepped forwards, closer to the bars. “Hi-- hello. Um. I didn’t-- I didn't mean to scare you, I'm. Sorry. I just heard you singing. It-- it was nice.”  
For a minute, he didn't say anything.

Of course he didn't. He was talking to a fucking _goblin_ in the middle of the night in a torture camp. What was she doing? What was she _doing?_  
Nott resigned herself to getting back to work, but her feet wouldn't move. Her heart was beating like a rabbits before you pulled its throat out with your teeth.

Then the young man shifted in his cell, walking up to the low bars and ducking his head a bit so his face was framed in the window. “Hello,” he said again, still in Halfling but no longer a question. His voice was cracked, dry and kind. In the flickering torchlight Nott met his bright blue eyes.

A few cautious conversations later, he told her his name was Yeza Brenatto.

She really liked his name.

  
*

  
Nott and Caleb move unnoticed through town, watching their footsteps and sticking close together. Nott looks around at the close-packed buildings and people with the awe of an outsider. It's still so _normal_ here. All greys and beige and porridge and smoke. The plainess feels strange after traveling out of the country for so long-- Nicodranus' brightness and opulence, Zadash's bustle and noise, the freezing air and sparkling snow in the north, the fucking ocean.  
It was easier for her to hide, there, in the hum of people in a city or the endless wilderness of travel. Easier to forget herself. That was the freedom that traveling with the Nein gave her: green fading to the background.

But returning here reminds her of it. She feels claustrophobic, suddenly and violently. The illusion feels smothering, like being stuck in that damned enchanted rug again, but even thinking of dropping it is worse.

It's not like she _could_ even if she wanted to; she doesn't quite have a death wish. And there's no mistaken what a Felderwin child would do if they saw her. Even the comfortable mundanity of the town is scarred from her kind, her _clan_. (Gods, she'll never be rid of them.) Deep marks clawed into paving stones; charred bits of roof hanging off buildings that hadn't yet been repaired; broken windows in the town center, and the way adults watch the shadows with fearful eyes whenever something twitches in them.

It makes Nott's stomach turn. There's some things only monsters do.

  
*

  
Yeza hadn’t thought she was monstrous. Not the way that the other goblins did. And not the way the other goblins _were_ , to him. To her. To everyone.

He’d been nice to her. He was a nice man. Not the type that seemed talkative, in a normal situation, but anyone could be talkative when they were in a solitary cell. In their first few conversations, he told her a lot about himself. Nott liked hearing about his life. His work-- it sounded wonderful. Even more wonderful was when he started telling her gradually about his family, parents and brothers and sisters.

Their talks were mostly one-sided. All of Nott's stories were horrible. Her work was either awful or something she had failed catastrophically, and she'd never had friends. She'd never even _known_ her parents. Nott was sure she _had_ them, obviously, but she didn't have fond memories of someone carrying her to sleep, or combining her hair back and setting it out of her eyes with a tie. That had never bothered her before, but now she felt it like a hollowness. She wasn't even sure what she was missing. Her parents didn't like her, anyway, whoever they were; no one in the clan did.

Her clan was so different from halflings. It had never been a happy thought, but now, like not remembering her parents, that knowledge was painful.  
There'd been times before when Nott had been filled with this-- this ache, this itch at all of her edges that her skin pulled against. But speaking with Yeza was the first time it had really felt unbearable. She wished she’d had better things to tell him, or anything at all.

They focused more on his work. It helped to wash Nott's memory of the bitter blood-reds and greyed out scenes of nights spent shivering alone. 

Yeza was an alchemist, and he had a shop back in the village. Thoughts of chemicals and maths lit up Nott’s brain in a way she'd only felt a little bit before, when she'd been shoved under the herbalist to try and learn poultices and poisons. Nott asked Yeza endless questions.

One time she’d asked him about thermodynamics and Yeza-- sweet, starving, injured Yeza-- had laughed and promised to lend her a book. Without thinking, Nott had smiled and said, "I'd really like that."  
They fell quiet for a moment. Nott had lightly put her claws to her mouth, surprised at herself and pretty sure she was blushing darker green. No one had made her a promise before.

It wasn't the beginning of their escape plan, but the hope of one.

  
*

  
Even though Nott _knows_ she's shielded by her own magic, and Caleb's careful shadow, walking through the street is terrifying. Her murky goblin instinct shouts at her to scurry away and hide, to hiss and bite at anyone who comes too close.

A second, warring instinct is hissing in her opposite ear, poisonous things: that she doesn’t _belong_ here, what is she thinking coming back? She needs to leave these nice innocent people to their lives without sullying it by her presence. She hasn't been noticed, but what if her concentration slips? What if someone sees through the illusion and hefts a sharp-edged rock in her direction, and she deserves it?

One half-year away from Felderwin can't erase seven close to it, it seems.

  
Caleb helps. He’s warm (hot, really) and protective, though he keeps nearly tripping her with how close he's pressing to her side. To anyone looking, they might seem to be a couple. Nott's face flushes under the illusion. They'd never talked about it directly, and he deserves much better than her anyway, but the idea is sweet. A young gnome woman smiles sideways at her companion.

Disguise Self was one of the first spells Caleb showned her after they’d met. It was the one she was most thankful for, so far. Though she still hoped-- if he got powerful enough, if he wasn't somehow sick of her before then, one day... She could come back here without hiding so much. Without her skin itching at imaginary seams, or pulling all wrong over her angles and her teeth.

Wistful, she hopes of warm brown skin, like Jester and Beau; a little darker than Yeza's probably is now, since he got probably got paler spending so much time inside while the Nein were constantly walking, or sailing, or otherwise out in the sun. Brown eyes, a sturdy, fat body like the stout halfling women she saw hugging their loved ones and calling out their wares in the market. Long black hair that she could twine into thick braids, properly black like the sky during new moons instead of clumped algae black-green. Bright yellow dresses and nice boots and all manner of things that she could wear without worrying about her own self sullying them. Necklaces that she could make from her collections, bracelets and rings.

One day. She swallows, blinking the daydreams away, and they evaporated like raimbows in fog.

Maybe she'll even be able to look Yeza in the eyes again.

  
*

  
Weeks after Yeza promised Nott a book to learn by herself, Nott broke him and a number of the other prisoners free. Her first act of courage, and she'd had to drink most of it from acid-sour whiskey stolen off the back steps of Felderwin houses.  
It wasn't a cunning or well-executed plan. She'd gotten good and drunk, then stole a crossbow from the stone-walled shack designated as an armory, hid in the shadows, and shot the next goblin who'd came by right in the butt. Nott had aimed for their leg, but her hand was shaking and her aim had been shitty. It'd must've still hurt a lot though. Her clan member had screamed loud enough to bring a handful of others running, hungry for blood.

The locks on the doors to the cells were easy to snap off in the chaos. The prisoners had watched her with huge, quiet eyes, which glimmered with tears in the dark but not in the eerie glow that goblins did. She'd tried to urge them out.  
Eventually, once they seemed to decide that if she _was_ leading them into a trap it was worth it for a chance, they ran out the opened doors and past the edges of camp. By themselves or in threes or more, her clan's prisoners escaped into the night, into the dark with the moons cream-white and harvest-orange above the trees.  
Nott stumbled after them, for a moment elated.  
She saw Yeza for a moment amid the fast-moving crowd. He seemed to have stopped, looking around for someone. Her heart panged. She hadn't realized that Yeza had been kidnapped alongside someone else-- a friend, someone in his family? Hopefully they had gotten away in the scramble too. Part of her wanted to go to him, to see him without the cold iron bars between them, but what good would that do? He'd probably not even recognize her in the dark, a monster amid all his fleeing people.

They ran in different directions.

The rest of that night could have gone differently. In another world, maybe, or if she'd had more time... But in real time, in real life, she'd been a coward. _Nott the brave_ living up to her name. The woods had been dark and deep, and as the booze wore off she'd panicked.  
By morning she was lost, bruised with blood pinpricking down her face from pine needles. Alone, struggling through a patch of thorns as wide around as her arm, cursing in three languages. She was exhausted. She couldn't make it.

Nott went back to the clan. Better the horror she knew than the horror she didn't, and all.  
It was worse, for a while. Then she and her ineptitude gradually faded back into the background again.

Maybe that would’ve been it. One moment of courage, of _goodness,_ and nothing else except rotten greens and mud for the rest of her life. If she was a better person, Nott believed she could've lived with that.  
But as she wasn't smart or brave, she _was_ selfish. Worse, she was curious. And she kept wondering about everything Yeza had told her. Thoughts of experiments and chemistry sparked between her ears, and she traced patterns in the dirt.

When most of her lacerations had scabbed over and her bruises healed into purple-brown shadows, she drank up some more courge and then snuck into Felderwin under the cover of darkness. Completely alone, under a cloaked hood.  
Heart in her throat, she found Yeza’s apothecary that he’d spoken so much about-- mostly by the sign, though also the smell-- and crept around the back.

Knocked three times on the door and stood back a bit so she’d be in the light, risking her hood down, not wanting to frighten him. Yeza’s answer was sharp behind the wood, in Common. “Who _is_ it?”  
Nott swallowed. “It’s, um… it’s me.”  
There’d been a pause.

Then the locks had scraped, and Yeza’s curious, warm face had appeared in the crack of the open door. Bruised, still, but healthier than she’d ever seen him. “... Nott?” He asked, voice… hopeful?  
She had nodded, smiled. “Hey,” she’d said quietly, her voice cracking. “Can, um. I’m sorry to just show up here, but-- can I come in?”

And he’d opened the door.

  
*

  
Passing buildings where she'd been spotted hiding and narrowly avoided a rock to the face, or had been run off the doorstep by a grocer who thought she'd been a regular robber at first instead of a goblin, Nott's ears stayed pinned flat down under her disguise. And even that feels wrong, like two pieces of ripped parchment that curl up from her skull.

It isn't always this bad. But today, here, the fact of her body stings like old wounds breaking open.

She wants to run. Gods, she wants to run. But she won’t, if only for Caleb's sake-- he worries, too, but he came with her. She couldn't let him down too. They're in this together.

They even turn invisible, together, under Nott's insistence. Their disguises still have at least another twenty minutes, and if anything shielding themselves from sight completely is _more_ of a danger if someone knocks into them accidentally. But when she asks, Caleb who's so smart only cups her cheek with his palm and agrees without question.

Her shaking has gotten worse, she thinks.

Being invisble is only a half-measure. She _really_ wants to be very, very drunk. But she won't do that either.  
Nott can’t be out of her head when she sees her daughter for the first time since nearly her birth. She _can’t._

*

Her visits to Felderwin had became a comfortable habit. Nott would never go during the day, or stay longer than a handful of hours. But they were wonderful hours. Yeza welcomed her into his home, and his life. The apothecary was small and smelled sharply of dye and medicine. It was one of the most beautiful places Nott had ever seen.

He followed through on his half-joking promise, even, giving her a book. She had learned how to read Common in scraps and repitition throughout her childhood, but the books were well beyond her vocabulary. Still, she learned quickly. At least enough to banter back and forth with him about thermodynamics and differing effectiveness of acids.  
Yeza said that she was a brilliant assistant, given him better ideas on how to mix tonics with less waste. She helped him keep up his experiments while he stocked the front of the store, re-organizing things in the warmth of the basement. She was so _comfortable_ there.

Nott had to go back to the clan eventually, of course. The green-wash of forest mud and blood and sour smell of smoked gristle, and all the sneering faces who hated her. But it was easier to bear with the memory of Yeza close by.

  
Camaraderie turned to friendship, turned to jokes that read as barbs on the first glance, but he never took them that way. He'd turned to asking her when she’d come back, and how long she could stay. She’d found small stones that she thought he might like in the bank of the river and brought them to the shop, . They messed around with chemicals and got absolutely out of their heads together in the basement on a couple of occasions, giggling and staring into each other’s eyes until the very early hours of the morning.  
A strange kind of courting. Love at second sight, maybe. Nott only called it that in retrospect; she wouldn’t’ve caught on at all that he might return her feelings, until Yeza had taken her hand before she’d left one dawn and slowly moved in to kiss her. Nott had practically stopped breathing.  
She’d only kissed people twice before, and both on dares. A bit pathetic for a grown woman. Neither had been particularly nice. They’d made her feel… hungry.  
Yeza’s kiss made her feel hungry too, but in a sweeter, warmer kind of way. Like the better-tasting whiskey she’d stolen.

Then, eventually, they did what people do. Even goblins were people sometimes.

Nott wasn't uneducated, exactly, about sex and the various risks involed with it. It'd simply never bothered her before. But she'd been around enough pregnancies to recognize signs, and when even her infrequent bleeding was late enough that she noticed, it wasn't difficult to figure out.  
On the night Nott finally willed herself to put two and two together, she felt panicked, and then numb. Her first and most logical thought was, _tell Yeza._

  
Yeza had answered her scratchy knock quickly and ushered her inside.  
He was up late experimenting, it seemed; the smudgy candle in the center-room of the apothecary was burning low, and his hair was a bit burnt. His crooked-toothed smile still sent butterflies fluttering through her stomach. Which was maybe silly, now.

Nott had expected it to vanish when she told him; for his warm demenour to turn sour and mean, or worse, disgusted.  
But Yeza didn’t do either of those things. Instead, his eyes got big and round, and he adjusted his glasses, nodding a few times seriously. “What-- what do you need?” He asked, gentle.  
She had blinked, wrongfooted. That wasn’t at all what he was meant to say. “I… I’m sorry, what?”  
He'd wrung his hands, looking serious. “If you wanted, I could make a tincture for you that would induce a miscarriage. It’s common enough, but-- I think I’d need some time.” His eyes ticked over to the fully stocked shelves, a quarter-height taller than him and her both, sized for the human customers who came into the apothecary with several step-ladders for small folk. He studied them analytically for a second, then shook his head minutely and looked back at her. “Yeah, I’m sorry, I don’t have the ingredients onhand right now. But I could get them soon-- tomorrow, even, maybe. And it’s safe. The success rate is very high, and the side-effects are minimal.”  
“So you’ve--you've done that before? For people?” Nott asked, curiosity piquing despite the situation. Despite the cold and anxiety, despite the way her hands kept stealing to her stomach without her even noticing. Not even resting palm-first, like she'd seen pregnant people do, but prodding at herself, poking carefully, like she was testing if she was in a dream.  
“Yes,” Yeza said firmly, nodding. “Like I said, abortifacients are a pretty common treatment. Every year there's a few of the girls and teens from the farms, especially around mid-summer... Sometimes I have to ask Ms. Gardener to take the till for a while, they get shy about coming in to ask. But I'm-- I'm just glad I can help them."  
Nott nodded, half of the words going through her ears like water. It was good that Yeza was here to help, she agreed. The thought made her chest warm. She swallowed. “Um. Is that what you want…?”  
His face was earnest. “It's not about what I want,” he said, gentle again. He paused for a second, then, adjusting his glasses. “And, if, you know, you _don’t_ want to end the pregnancy, that’s alright! I… I’d be happy to have you stay here, for a while. Only if that's something you would like,” he added quickly. “And of course you could leave whenever you’d need, I, I could borrow a silver to make a new key for the shop and you could stay here, in the back. Or, um.” His brown skin darkened a bit more around the apples of his face. “You could just stay in my room, too. I just mean, you know. It’d have to be more comfortable than sleeping on the ground out in-- in a dirt field, anyway.”  
Nott nodded, a few times, since she wasn’t sure what else to do. “I’ll... I’ll think about it?" She said, then breathed in, solidity settling in her shoulders. “I’ll think about it,” she said a bit more firmly. “I know it’s, you know, a limited timeline--" Another poke at her stomach, her claw bent away. "I’d just like some time to consider it.”  
“Whatever you need,” Yeza agreed. Surprisingly, he reached out to her and held her hands tightly.

Then, most surprisingly of all, he kissed her. Right on her lips and gently, like they had before; like he hadn’t changed his mind about being around her at all.

Deciding to have the baby had been easy. She'd shocked herself with just _how_ easy. Surely she didn't deserve a child, a-- a home, if what Yeza had said was true. But it’d been nice, for once, to think about the future.  
Once she had, it felt like the weeks passed by frighteningly quickly.  
Her clan, she thought, didn't notice much. Nott had faded herself into the background again, doing whatever she was told quietly and fast, passing muster to whatever new supervisor they shoved her towards for a while before they moved on to some other apprentice, or hapless victim. She'd kept going into see Yeza, whenever she could. That had made it a little easier to bear.  
The baby quickened almost in the middle of winter, growing so much and so visibly it shocked Nott. The bitterness of the cold that year turned out to be something of a gift: her piling on layers after layers of dirty clothes and armour didn't seem to make her fellow gobbies suspicious, not when _everyone_ was squabbling for food and blankets and the best spots near the fire.  
So much of her pregnancy was defined by burning white: the snow, the frostbite as it slowly took the tips of the unluckier goblins' ears, the warm woolen gloves that Yeza had tried to gift to her which had made her tear up. (She couldn't wear them, not without anyone noticing, so she kept them in her stash buried under the crooked tree instead. They were such soft, pretty things.)  
  


Then spring had came, crackling and flooding, and it was time.  
_Having_ the baby had been frightening and painful, enough that Nott had bit straight through her lip to keep from screaming. She would remember that night for as long as she lived: the acrid bear musk of the cave she’d crept into, the mazes of cracks in the walls in the dark. The baby’s first tiny cry.

Nott had known immediately she couldn't keep her, and she'd wept right along.

The baby had been lovely. Her skin was blotchy at first, but as Nott rested with her on her chest, it cooled into a light brown with not a speck of green anywhere. Her eyes were dark in the fading light, and round as moons with little flecks of gold. Her ears were a little pointed, but she didn’t have any claws to speak of, and no teeth when she yawned and gave a small squalling cry. She felt small in Nott’s arms. Maybe too small?

Nott had no idea. Her clan didn’t have any midwives, and she’d never been close to anyone else who’d had a baby to ask, before.

She felt the enormity of her unworthiness, holding her daughter. Not smart enough to even know if she was _healthy,_ not brave enough to have stayed with Yeza the whole time. Not strong or good enough to protect the baby like she needed.  
Nott's heart was a crumbling dam: broken and overflowed at once.

The baby couldn’t stay in the clan. They’d kill her on sight. The thought of it made Nott’s shoulders shake and her hands go cold.  
She would have to go back to Felderwin, to Yeza's family. And then-- Nott knew this without question, as well, the pure fact of it deep and horrible in her chest-- Nott would have to never be seen with her again.

It hurts. Nott squeezed her eyes closed against the inevitability, and she presses her baby just a bit closer to herself. She leaned her nose onto the baby’s forehead. The skin there was covered with a strange flaky film, but underneath was terrifyingly soft. She smelled-- it was hard to say. It remindsed Nott, strangely, of the bakery in Felderwin, butter and sugar.  
She pressed a kiss to her forehead, taking all the skill she’s learned from kissing Yeza for so many months so that none of her own crooked teeth so much as brush the baby’s wisps of hair.

  
It'd be selfish to name her at this point, Nott was sure. And pointless: she didn't know if Yeza would give her a different name-- her own clan renamed members as they grow, but she didn't think that halflings did the same? She couldn't remember.

But, gods, she’d given up so much and she’d have to give up more soon. So she kissed her daugher again. “Nice to meet you, Frieda Go,” she said softly. Her voice cracked in the dark.  
Frieda moved a bit, waving her tiny, chubby arm and a tiny, chubby fist, before she settled again over Nott’s heart. There’s one similarity to her and all the other goblins that Nott can tell: she was a tiny furnace. Maybe all babies were. Nott blinked tears out of her eyes again.

  
She wrapped Frieda in some shreds of her cloak, which she had ripped in half with her claws before the birth pangs really kicked in so she could at least have something to lay down on. Then, weakly, she'd done her best to sneak out of the cave.

Her clan-mates had slid out of the shadows, thrown her kicking and shouting into the river with Frieda crying in her arms.

  
*

  
She can still feel it sometimes. The shock of hitting water, her meagre clothes weighing her down, cold burning her nose and her lungs and ears, choking, fading. Frieda thrashing as Nott tried to hug her close. Her terror sharp and white as a wire.

It’d been five years now since she’d climbed out of the water clutching her newborn to her chest, vision blurred, the forest ahead of her a miserable wash of greens of greys. Five years less three days when she’d run away from her only friend and their daughter in the middle of the night. All of it sat heavy on her mind. All of it. Pain and panic and running and the Nein, Caleb and colours and cold, sadness and Yeza and Frieda and darkness.

But now, finally--

Standing there right in the lane in front of them--

A halfling child, a wonderful, healthy little girl. She's gotten so _big._ Frieda has warm brown skin and a chubby face, shorts-overalls covered with mud stains and what looks suspiciously like charcoal, flyaway brown hair that's slowly unravelling from a braid, and bright, shining green eyes. It’s a stab in Nott’s gut, seeing the colour in the little girl, but it’s sweet all the same, so much more lovely on her eyes than it is on Nott’s... everywhere.

She’s playing with another little girl, a human who's about twice her height so probably her same age. They're taking turns spinning a wooden hoop, trying to throw it right so it rolled out and then back to them. but it kept getting stuck in the road, the earth overturned and loose from the rain the night before. They were singing with it too, some nonsense rhyme in their bright little voices. Oblivious to their invisible audience-- which itself makes Nott’s throat close up in fear and worry, wondering who else might have been watching them-- they keep wandering so close to Nott and Caleb that they could almost take their hands.  
Frieda is laughing. Her and Yeza have the same laugh. Probably the same burp, maybe the same slightly aggravated sigh when something stupid goes wrong-- though she might tantrum instead of sigh, at this age, Nott guesses. It _hurts_ that she doesn’t know for sure.

The two children chase the hoop off down the street, hollering excitedly, weaving between pedestrians and stall-owners who barely spare them a glance. Nott lets out a long exhale that makes her head spin, for the first time in what feels like hours.

Caleb squeezes her shoulder. “She’s beautiful, Nott,” he says softly.

She nods, even though he can’t see her. Sniffling would only worry him so she wipes her weeping onto her dirty sleeve and strangles the cry that's building up in her throat. “That’ll be her dad,” she finally murmurs.

Regret as deep and cold as the river wells up in her chest.  
But it is still better this way: better that Nott feel this loss and dizzying sense of time than Frieda or Yeza feel any of the grief that she had been given growing up around the town, thrown stones or a scream going up because her face was spotted from behind a tree by the tailor’s stall in the marketplace. Her heart aches with the bottled-up love, but-- if she really loves them she’ll make sure it stays that way.

“Come on,” Nott whispers to Caleb, tugging on his invisible sleeve. “Let’s-- let’s go back to the others.” She can’t hide her stuffy voice or the frog in her throat anymore, so she doesn’t even try.  
His breath catches slightly, and a second later, he squeezes her shoulder again, somehow impossibly more gently. He answers in a hush, "Are-- are you sure? We can wait for a bit longer, it is no trouble."

" _No,_ " Nott says, and it's with more bite than she means. She flinches away from her words, wilting and clapping her hand over her mouth. Her teeth press strangely into her fingers. "I-- I'm sorry, Caleb. But no. I don't... I don't want to stay here any more."

It feels horrible to say. But she can't hide the truth anymore. Her eyes spill again, and likely as not its that display of mourning that makes Caleb agree.

  
*  
  
The skies outside the village are just ever so slightly clearer blue, as if the smoke from chimneys and dust from the road has actually made a measurable difference in Felderwin. Nott can't breathe significantly better, even so.

She lets the invisibility spell drop and the disguise dissolve at the same moment, her head tilted up, trying to focus only on what's in front of her. It's easier when she's drunk, but, she likes sky-blue. It's much brighter than the river, and more like Yeza's eyes; Caleb's eyes.

Behind her comes a soft, “Nott, The Brave?”

Nott has mostly finished drying her eyes by now. She turns, a pace or two ahead of him, then blinks, startled, as he drops to his knee in front of her.  
When he opens his arms, though, she immediately leans into them, wrapping her own around his skinny frame. Stronger now, better fed, and she is glad. She buries her face into his scarf (scoured by sea water, still smelling like grey-blue and salt) so she doesn’t have to look at her own bony wrists, sticking out from her layers of torn sleeves and bandages.

After a moment of holding each other, Caleb shifts and pulls back, cupping her cheek in his hand. He’s careful with his nails, as he was careful with his words earlier. He doesn't often literally burst into flame anymore, but it can be a close thing. The red clay colour of his skin stands out from the sky behind him, as does his ember hair, and pale scars along his arms like that same clay left to crack in the sun. Pale bits of sky look at her sympathetically. “Are you okay?” He asks, earnest.  
She could almost laugh. Almost. “ _Nope._ ”  
Caleb winces. “Ja, that's. Stupid question, Widogast. Um. Well, I know that... must have been painful, or, I can imagine, even if we didn't end up seeing your-- your fellow, as well. And I don't mean to... I know we're not a replacement for all that you've lost, Nott. But-- if it's any help-- we're all here beside you. _I'm_ here beside you. For whatever you need."

Full of flattery, this man. "Thank you, Lebby. You're... you're right. That..." She exhales again. "That does help. You're so smart. You, and-- and everyone... you mean more to me than I can say."  
She can see his quick frown at the compliment, but he smoothes it away quickly. "You know..." He starts softly, then visibly hesitates.  
Nott glances around them, the hairs on the back of her neck raising like she'd been hit by static. "What is it? What's there?!"  
"No, nothing-- nothing, sorry." Caleb smiles, then, the tiny gentle one he seems to save especially for her. "Come here? Let's... just sit for a moment."

  
Demonstrating this, he shuffles around on his heels and gets himself settled against a large stone that sat on the side of the path they were following back into the woods, where the rest of the Nein wait.

They should really get back to them. Nott chews on her (rough, nearly scaly) fingers for a second, then nestles down in the grass next to Caleb. It's not like she cares that her cloak and tunic are going to get dirty again. This would be a very weird time for her to pick vanity over comfort. Besides, tucked into Caleb's side is one of her favourite places to be.   
The warm, faded brown of his coat fills most of her vision. He smells like he always does, kind of stinking and acrid but deeply, comfortingly familiar. The small animal part of her brain insists _warm, safe._ Her face warms at the same time as her heart.

Caleb shuffles his arm to hold her closer, and then speaks up. "My mother, Una..." he begins softly, and takes a moment.  
Nott stiffens with shock. Caleb never spoke about his family freely before. "Yes?" She asked carefully.  
Her wizard shakes his head loose of dark red thoughts. He continues. "She used to tell me when I was a boy, how she and my father, Leofric, had found me." A ghost of a happy memory traces across his face. "My, ah, my birthday was in the middle of winter, you see. She'd say that, one day, her and my father decided they wanted a baby. So at sundown they closed up all the shutters of the house, and built up the fire until everything was bright light. They sat close to that fire and held hands the whole night, praying to Pelor together. And when they woke in the morning the fire had burnt out, but the windows were letting sunlight in, and I was asleep at the foot of the grate with the coals as my pillow and soot as my blanket."  
Oh. Nott's eyes sting a little "That's a beautiful story."  
"Ja." He nods, the smile still on his lips. It slides away into the clouds again after a moment, but it stays precious to her. "It was not the easiest, you know, growing up how I did in... in my home. But I managed. There are, um, many things that a town can get used to, given enough time."  
The connection isn't a difficult one to make. Nott understands, wants to agree if only to make him happy, but something bitter is welling up in her throat. "I'm sure your magic helped," she says, almost sarcastic; and immediately feels terrible.

Caleb only _hmm'_ s. "All I mean to say, Nott, is I... listen, we will still do what you want. I will help you however you need me to. And-- and if, you know, at some point, you want to come back, we can do that to. But, but even without that-- you would be a wonderful mother to your girl, if you wanted to be. You are far more than what they all put you through." He says the last gently, then turns to look at her. Despite how calm his words are, his eyebrows are smoldering.  
Weirdly, that makes the knot in Nott's heart ease more than his story. Like with Jester, before-- It's comforting to see him so angry, in a way. Nott's never had anyone _to_ be angry on her behalf except for the Nein. She smiles through her blurring vision. “You are, too, Lebby,” she says softly."You were _you_ before everything that happened to you, too."

Out of habit, she expects him to deny it. Instead Caleb leans forwards and kisses her, nudging her face sideways to avoid the nose bump. His lips are hot and soft, avoiding the worst of her needle-like teeth through practiced motions. At the same time he puts his hands on her shoulder and gently kneads the fright-frozen muscle there, like Frumpy would.  
The soothing heat seeps into Nott's bones. Her eyes slide closed as she responds eagerly, her arms around his shoulders.  
It’s nice. It helps. Doesn’t solve the ache of time lost, or the knowledge that back there-- not a kilometre behind them-- is her first friend and first bed-partner, and their _daughter,_ and she can’t see either of them now and likely not for a long time. But the kiss and Caleb’s hands are there too. Real and warm and bright yellow, grounding.  
He helps the cold, stoppered feeling in her chest loosen. Love bubbles out. She can’t stop it; she never really could, and now she doesn’t even want to.

  
“The others are probably fucking back at camp,” she murmurs when they surface together.  
“Having a fivesome,” Caleb nods solemnly, brightness flickering in his eyes. “Let’s get back to them.”

They walk the rest of the way hand in hand.

*

**Author's Note:**

> (*"Ugh, 'burnt sienna', this author's so pretentious. It's fucking orange. /Burnt sienna./")  
> So I started this story way, _way_ back when Widobrave Week 2k20 was happening, but it coincided with my brain breaking down, billowing electrical sparks, burning-things smell, etc. etc. But now it is here! It's y'all's problem. (/That last part is a joke).
> 
> Further notes on the type:  
> The full name of the torturer is Gott The Knife. I don't know why I made the Felderwin goblin’s naming conventions entirely puns but! I did.
> 
> Blue + yellow = green, is part of the deal with Frieda's eyes; though I know that's not exactly how eye genetics works, so maybe one of Yeza's parents also had green eyes or something. It's about the symbolism. Green Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose.
> 
> It's a bit more of a species musical-chairs than a swap. In a loose order:  
> -Caleb is a fire genasi, raised by his human parents in Blumenthal. His mother's story was lovely and not actually what happened, as you might guess.  
> -Jester is a young half-orc lady. I imagined Marion being human, still 'The Ruby Of The Sea' but she picked her stage name based on a particular shade of red in her performing dresses and jewelry, rather than bc She's Red.  
> -Yasha and Molly (Fs in chat) swapped directly, though Yasha was still Xhorhassian and Molly still woke up buried in the woods  
> -Fjord is an green tiefling! He picked at his horns as well as his teeth growing up-- though he had fangs, not tusks-- and yes, it was still very sad  
> -Halfling Beau! Half the size, twice the ass-kicking. I think she'd be a Lightfoot halfling, and she would not put off using Luck rolls unlike someone else I could mention  
> -Cad is still himself. I thought about human!Cad, but I felt like a lot of his character's outlook, with his devotion to the Wildmother and attitude towards death / healing in general, is shaped by him being part of a species who live so long.  
> As always, thank you for reading.


End file.
